With the help of grants from state agencies and partnerships with trucking companies, the San Pedro Bay ports are testing several forms of green technology. These include zero-emissions trucks and cargo handling equipment, upgraded engines for tugboats and solar panels at the terminals. Although many of these are still prototypes, environmental leaders at the Port of Long Beach and the Port of Los Angeles are optimistic about meeting the goals outlined in their joint Clean Air Action Plan (CAAP).

An example of an electric-powered automated guided vehicle at Long Beach Container Terminal at the Port of Long Beach. The zero-emission equipment moves cargo throughout the terminal. The Clean Air Action Plan, the guiding document for environmental initiatives at the San Pedro Bay ports, sets the goal of implementing zero-emissions cargo-handling equipment by 2030. (Photograph courtesy of the Port of Long Beach)

The Clean Air Action Plan, the guiding document for the ports’ environmental initiatives, sets forth the goals of implementing zero-emissions cargo handling equipment by 2030 and zero-emissions for drayage trucks serving the ports by 2035. It also outlines the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 80% below 1990 levels by 2050, which Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners President Tracy Egoscue described as “very ambitious.”

Egoscue described the developing technologies as cutting edge and as the “final frontier” in green supply chain operations. “The CAAP provides a path,” she said. “We all need to pull together: the shipping industry, the terminals. . . to meet these ambitious goals. This is a heavy lift.”

With the help of outside agencies, the San Pedro Bay ports are demonstrating green technology for each component of the supply chain. In September, the Port of Long Beach received a preliminary grant award for $50 million from the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to deploy 33 electric yard tractors, a top handler, five battery-electric trucks with two charging outlets, two container ships with clean engines and an electric-drive tugboat.

“We’re driving the direction of where future port operations need to go to address environmental impacts,” Heather Tomley, the Port of Long Beach’s acting managing director of planning and environmental affairs, commented. “The scale of these demonstrations is something that’s not being done anywhere else at this point.”

TransPower, a California company that offers clean transportation and energy storage solutions, is developing the battery-electric trucks and tractors. “The trucks are quieter and smoother to operate,” Joshua Goldman, TransPower sales and marketing vice president, commented. “They have diesel-like performance in terms of acceleration and operation.” Although they are currently more expensive than a diesel truck, they cost less to operate and maintain overall, Goldman said.

The Port of Los Angeles (POLA) is also working to implement battery-electric equipment. Tests are underway to compare battery-electric yard tractors to tractors run by renewable, natural gas. “We’re going to see which one performs better and which has better operating maintenance and duty cycle performance,” POLA Chief Sustainability Officer and Director of Environmental Management Chris Cannon said.

Another project taking place at POLA is the installment of solar panels to collect energy and store it in batteries for use after sundown. “That’s pretty exciting because [the facilities] would have a series of zero-emissions equipment that could be charged using the battery or solar panels,” Cannon explained. “That would be the first in the world, a terminal that could operate off the grid. . . . In the event of a natural disaster or if the power goes down, it could handle disaster relief or otherwise serve the region.”

Both ports are also working towards converting the engines on their current fleet of tugboats. A retrofit device upgrades an engine that meets the Tier 2 emission level standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency to Tier 4, the ‘cleanest’ category. “This can be done for a couple hundred thousand dollars as opposed to doing a full re-power of the engine,” Tomley said.

She added that the Port of Long Beach has issued a request for proposals for the development of different systems to reduce emissions from at-berth vessels. “Shore power is an option for a lot of the container terminals, but we’re looking at alternative technology for the other vessel types,” she said. Shore power allows a parked vessel to draw electricity from the grid rather than by running its engine.

The San Pedro Bay ports are in the process of testing trucks powered by different clean technologies. In the summer, the South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) and Daimler Trucks North America announced a project to develop 20 heavy-duty, battery-electric trucks, with seven deployed at the ports of L.A. and Long Beach. According to SCAQMD, the initiative is slated to begin in December. Tomley said the project is pending approval by the boards of the two ports, which have proposed providing $2 million in match funding.

Cannon commented that while battery-electric vehicles are not new, the technology is innovative because it has just recently extended to the heavy-duty category of trucks. “That’s because the demands on the battery in the heavy-duty industrial sector are really high,” he explained. “It requires really large batteries that have a lot of energy-storing capability. That part of it is still new.”

Because of a previous CARB grant, electric transportation company BYD has four Class 8 (heavy-duty) trucks servicing the Port of Long Beach. The trucks have been in use for about four months now. “Since drayage trucks generally have limited mileage, return to a home yard every night, and spend a large amount of time in creep mode [moving at a slow pace], they represent an excellent opportunity to test battery-electric technologies with the potential for commercial viability,” BYD Media Relations Specialist Jim Skeen stated in an e-mail. In early 2019, BYD plans to roll out nine more of these trucks to service the port.

An emissions capture system is hooked up to a container ship berthed at the Port of Los Angeles. The technology is used on older vessels that do not have the capability of plugging into shore power while at berth. (Photograph courtesy of the Port of Los Angeles)

More recently, CARB preliminarily awarded $41 million to POLA for its zero-emission freight “shore to store” project in September. The initiative entails the deployment of 10 Kenworth and Toyota fuel cell-powered Class 8 trucks, the construction of two large-capacity hydrogen fueling stations in Wilmington and Ontario, and the addition of two zero-emission forklifts at Toyota’s POLA warehouse.

According to the Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Energy Association, a national advocacy group that represents companies advancing clean technology, fuel cells operate by converting fuel into electricity through a chemical process. Unlike batteries, they do not need to be recharged, but continue to produce electricity as long as they have a fuel source.

Cannon expressed excitement about the possibility of Toyota’s equipment since fuel cell technology expands the range of electricity-powered trucks. According to Cannon, battery-electric trucks have a range of about 100 miles, making them better-equipped for short-haul drayage within the port complex. “But if you’ve got to make a 100-mile drive or even an 80-mile drive, all of a sudden, you’re getting to your outer range of that capability,” he said. “[Toyota] thinks they have a range between 300 to 400 miles and, so far they’ve been able to test up to 200 miles. They believe it’s because [the trucks have] a fuel cell and a battery operating together.”

The San Pedro Bay ports are also expanding battery-electric technology to another form of short-range transportation: a switcher locomotive. This vehicle assembles trains for long-haul transport. It also moves railroad cars around or makes short transfer runs. “We have a port-wide switching company called Pacific Harbor Line whose purpose is to move rail cars. They set them up and build longer trains so that the long-haul railroads, BNSF Railway and Union Pacific Railroad, can come in and pick up the trains,” Cannon explained. “They already have a clean switching fleet, thanks to the work of the CAAP.”

Cannon estimated that the lump sum of grants awarded to the two ports is over $150 million. The ports’ environmental leaders stressed the importance of positioning the port complex as a pioneer in green initiatives. “We’ve been participating in not only going after grants when they’re issued, but also working with agencies on their investment plans to ensure that the port complex is a priority as they’re coming up with future grant programs,” Tomley said. “We’ve been lobbying the legislature to make sure funding is available for these types of projects in upcoming budgets.”

Currently, about 13% of the equipment operating at the Port of Long Beach is zero-emissions, Tomley said. She estimated that it would be up to 16% by 2020. At the Port of L.A., 6.8% of in-use cargo-handling equipment is zero-emissions, as are less than 1% of heavy-duty vehicles, Cannon reported.

Tomley agreed with Egoscue’s assessment that the goals of the CAAP are ambitious, but said the ports are headed in the right direction. “We recognize that the goals are very aggressive and that there are a lot of challenges, but that’s our goal, and we’re making the progress we need to get on track.”

According to Egoscue, since the CAAP was adopted in 2006, the Port of Long Beach has seen a reduction in certain air pollutants such as diesel fuels and oxides of nitrogen and sulfur. But greenhouse gases are “a tougher nut to crack,” she said.

“All over the world, burning fuel is what we’ve relied upon. Ships burn fuel and trucks burn fuel, and even our terminals use fossil fuels, which cause greenhouse gases,” Egoscue said. “I think that’s why what we’ve seen is particularly difficult and problematic to address. We have to switch our expectations of what fuels our economy. That’s why the marketplace hasn’t had these technologies available, because we haven’t been relying on them.”

An emissions capture system is hooked up to a container ship berthed at the Port of Los Angeles. The technology is used on older vessels that do not have the capability of plugging into shore power while at berth. (Photograph courtesy of the Port of Los Angeles)

 

More recently, CARB preliminarily awarded $41 million to POLA for its zero-emission freight “shore to store” project in September. The initiative entails the deployment of 10 Kenworth and Toyota fuel cell-powered Class 8 trucks, the construction of two large-capacity hydrogen fueling stations in Wilmington and Ontario, and the addition of two zero-emission forklifts at Toyota’s POLA warehouse.

According to the Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Energy Association, a national advocacy group that represents companies advancing clean technology, fuel cells operate by converting fuel into electricity through a chemical process. Unlike batteries, they do not need to be recharged, but continue to produce electricity as long as they have a fuel source.

Cannon expressed excitement about the possibility of Toyota’s equipment since fuel cell technology expands the range of electricity-powered trucks. According to Cannon, battery-electric trucks have a range of about 100 miles, making them better-equipped for short-haul drayage within the port complex. “But if you’ve got to make a 100-mile drive or even an 80-mile drive, all of a sudden, you’re getting to your outer range of that capability,” he said. “[Toyota] thinks they have a range between 300 to 400 miles and, so far they’ve been able to test up to 200 miles. They believe it’s because [the trucks have] a fuel cell and a battery operating together.”

The San Pedro Bay ports are also expanding battery-electric technology to another form of short-range transportation: a switcher locomotive. This vehicle assembles trains for long-haul transport. It also moves railroad cars around or makes short transfer runs. “We have a port-wide switching company called Pacific Harbor Line whose purpose is to move rail cars. They set them up and build longer trains so that the long-haul railroads, BNSF Railway and Union Pacific Railroad, can come in and pick up the trains,” Cannon explained. “They already have a clean switching fleet, thanks to the work of the CAAP.”

Cannon estimated that the lump sum of grants awarded to the two ports is over $150 million. The ports’ environmental leaders stressed the importance of positioning the port complex as a pioneer in green initiatives. “We’ve been participating in not only going after grants when they’re issued, but also working with agencies on their investment plans to ensure that the port complex is a priority as they’re coming up with future grant programs,” Tomley said. “We’ve been lobbying the legislature to make sure funding is available for these types of projects in upcoming budgets.”

Currently, about 13% of the equipment operating at the Port of Long Beach is zero-emissions, Tomley said. She estimated that it would be up to 16% by 2020. At the Port of L.A., 6.8% of in-use cargo-handling equipment is zero-emissions, as are less than 1% of heavy-duty vehicles, Cannon reported.

Tomley agreed with Egoscue’s assessment that the goals of the CAAP are ambitious, but said the ports are headed in the right direction. “We recognize that the goals are very aggressive and that there are a lot of challenges, but that’s our goal, and we’re making the progress we need to get on track.”

According to Egoscue, since the CAAP was adopted in 2006, the Port of Long Beach has seen a reduction in certain air pollutants such as diesel fuels and oxides of nitrogen and sulfur. But greenhouse gases are “a tougher nut to crack,” she said.

“All over the world, burning fuel is what we’ve relied upon. Ships burn fuel and trucks burn fuel, and even our terminals use fossil fuels, which cause greenhouse gases,” Egoscue said. “I think that’s why what we’ve seen is particularly difficult and problematic to address. We have to switch our expectations of what fuels our economy. That’s why the marketplace hasn’t had these technologies available, because we haven’t been relying on them.”